SALLY J. WALKER'S PAGE

After serving as Nebraska-Iowa Commissioner for a number of years, Sally was elected Heartland Regional Vice-President of Clan MacKenzie in the Americas, encouraging clan activities in MN, WI, MI, IN, IL, IA, NE, KS and MO. She mans a clan booth at highland games and recruits new members, always asking them to contribute their family information to the MacKenzie Archives at the Odom genealogy Library in Moultrie, GA. When not piping, I've also helped out in the booth. It's been fun meeting people interested in their Scottish roots. The tartan at the top of the page is MacKenzie, of course.

Sally had been the family "go-fer" our first few years of involvement in the pipeband and Scottish dancing. Since she had a childhood background in dance, she took the dramatic plunge of competing in the 16 & Over level of Highland Dance. In an 8 year period, she surprisingly won medals and advanced from Beginner to Novice. The fact that the games' brochures printed competitor ages didn't deter her. Mixing the Sword Dance and wine at a writers' party resulted in a bad knee that has side-lined further athletic aspirations. Now, she is just an avid supporter who hopes to see our granddaughter taking lessons from her aunt, a certified Highland and soon-to-be certified Irish dance teacher.

SALLY J. WALKER

E-Mail: sallyjwalker@cox.net

A professional writer, editor and creative writing instructor since receiving her 1985 BFA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, my Iowa-born wife belongs to the local chapter of Romance Writers of America RWA, Western Writers of America, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Nebraska Writers Guild, and the Nebraska Writers (a weekly study-critique group she has facilitated since 1985). Well over 1,000 Midwest writers have attended her weekend WRITE-NOW workshops on Intro to Novel Writing, Fictional Characterization, Advanced Plotting Techniques, Writing Genre, Fiction's Grammar, Scene-by-Scene Writing, and Revising & Selling. Intro to Screenwriting and Analyzing & Writing Genre Film are two of her courses praised by Lew Hunter, retired chair of UCLA's Screenwriting program and Executive Director of the Sorbonne's Film Institute in Paris. She offers one workshop a month through Omaha's Metropolitan Community College, but has taught in other Midwestern cities and at national conferences. Her non-fiction and teaching skills even went on-line with RWA's Kiss-of-Death chapter in 2001 and 2002 and even more RWA on-line offerings since then. She has been an artist-in-residence for the Nebraska Arts Council, as well as a motivational speaker to area schools and civic organizations.

On-Line

"Writing from the Anziety Curve" Novermber 1-30, 2008 www.Writersonlline.com $30

On-Site

"Ignite Your Fiction" Sat, Dec 6,2008, 1-5pm Metropolitan Community College, Omaha,Ne $45

"Exercises in Character Profiling" Sat, January 24, 2009, 1-5pm Metropolitan Community College, Omaha,NE $45

"Intro to screenwriting" Sat, February 7, 2009 9am-5pm Baright Public Libaary, Ralston, NE
Free to students (teens and college) $20 Adults (donation to Omaha Film Festival)

Sally started her career with acclaim for an NEA-produced play (now published with others by International Reader's Theatre out of Canada), short stories, professional nursing articles, and internationally published poetry. The C. S. Lewis Society brought tears to her eyes when they compared her poetry to the great Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Her audio novella, THE HEALING TOUCH, was runner-up to STAR WARS for the audio industry's highest award in 1994.

Her "The Emergence of Romance as Literature" chapter in the scholarly anthology ALL WE KNOW OF HEAVEN, prompted Sally to write articles on the specialized romance craft for ROMANTIC HEARTS Magazine. The handbook HOW TO PUBLISH AND PROMOTE ON LINE contains Sally's chapter "Blurbs Sell Books." In 1999 her non-fiction skills earned her a staff position at SCREENTALK , THE INTERNALTIONAL VOICE OF SCREENWRITING, a bi-monthly magazine out of Odense, Denmark, bought out in 2005 by a competitor. Sally contributed interviews or craft articles to each issue for those six years. She has just joined the staff of MOVIESCOPE Magazine out of London, another voice in the international film industry.

After several of her works were contracted byThe Fiction Works , Sally was asked to be a TFW copy editor. In June 2000 Publisher Ray Hoy hired her as Editorial Director to oversee numerous freelance editors and cover artists. She helped him restructure and expand the small publishing company, but is proudest of brainstorming a line of fiction anthologies for the adult literacy market, the Bell Ringers. Her years of experiencing the publishing industry's silence about rejection reasons motivated her to create an objective checklist for TFW acquisition readers and editors. Sally innovatively shares their evaluations with authors. This company is obviously her publishing house of choice, but she avoids nepotism by submitting her own work under a variety of pseudonyms. "Some have been contracted, some have been rejected, and that's life," she tells me. Among her TFW contracted works are:

- LETTING GO OF SACRED THINGS, a literary novel of life stages in the 20th century, released in 2002, available on Amazon.com

- DESERT TIME, a western saga following the life of a young woman abandoned by one man and cherished by another in 1859 New Mexico, released in 2005, available on Amazon.com

- Four stories included in the Hi-Lo (Third Grade Level) adult literacy anthology TELL ME OF LOVE, released in 2004, available on Amazon.com

- Two stories included in the Hi-Lo (Third Grade Level) adult literacy anthology THE REAL WEST, released in 2004, available on Amazon.com

Novella collections to be released in 2006 by TFW:

- CHACO, including - TO TOUCH TO BELONG about a virile Hispanic nurse and a hard-headed California doctor building a medical clinic, - TIES THAT BIND about a Hispanic deputy and a Hispanic newspaperwoman trying to forget her Charro heritage, - TURQUOIS & A FEATHER about a Mescalero Apache architect and a Cherokee female geologist butting heads over mineral rights.

- THE SEDUCTION OF TEMPERANCE, including - THE SEDUCTION OF TEMPERANCE, a West Texas saloon owner and the daughter of a Temperance leader are accused of that man's murder. - THE LONELY MAN, a shattered Civil War vet takes on an abused family and a self-serving town. - STORM MAKER, a Shoshoni holy man manipulates old friends to help him orchestrate vengeance on the town that murdered his tribe.

Sally's book agent is marketing several projects, including:

Juvenile Literature

- THE LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN ROSE, a children's illustrated read-aloud of a Scottish fairy tale
- THE LITTLEST PIPER, a children's illustrated read-aloud of a precocious and determined pre-schooler discovering the bagpipes
- BEAT THE DRUM, a children's illustrated read-aloud of a youngster learning about all types of drums and finding his niche in Scottish Highland Drumming.
- MEGAN IS SCOTTISH, a children's illustrated read-aloud of a little girl learning Highland Dancing as a part of her heritage.
- FIDDLING IS FUN, a children's illustrated read-aloud about a young boy learning the rudiments of the violin then discovering his knack for the magic of Celtic music.
- THE CAREGIVERS, a Young Adult series about young people discovering their vocations and the challenges of modern nursing (The first such series since 1964)

Westerns

- LOVE, GUNS, OR GRACE, a cutting-edge Christian novel of a young Episcopal vicar in 1877 Wyoming
- PLEASE BELIEVE, about baseball, passion and courage in 1894 Nebraska
- UNTIL THE HORSEWHISPERER, in 1874 Nebraska a Scottish horseman meets his destiny and a man who will not stay dead.

Contemporary Romantic Suspense

- BIKES AND BADGES, a Nebraska State Trooper vs an FBI undercover "biker babe" chasing drugs and murder.
- OFFICIAL RULES, an umpire and a female cleric stand up to gambling and blackmail in baseball.
- BY ROYAL INVITATION, a nurse accepts an invitation to an island nation intending to help plan a hospital but encountering a marriage proposal and an international murder plot.

The primary focus of Sally's creative life is her screenwriting. She told a newspaper columnist, "Screenwriting has everything: the depth of a novel, the immediacy of a short story, the intense imagery of poetry, and the compact, multi-layered dialogue of stageplays. Plus, it has to be written to stimulate the collaborate genius of so many others. Wow! What a challenge!" She wrote her first teleplay at age 16 under the tutelage of N.B. Stone, Jr., a BONANZA writer for Paramount. In 1989 Joe Wallenstein, a KNOTT'S LANDING producer, began mentoring her efforts. In 1997 Lew Hunter took over her coaching. She had written 8 screenplays at that point and is on her 20th in 2005. (Is this driven, or what?). Her western THE LONELY MAN placed among the 233 quaterfinalists of the 4,446 entries in the 1998 Nicholl competition sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Lew told her "The only failures in Hollywood are those who quit." My wife's too addicted to quit, so I guess she will eventually get something optioned, maybe even into production. With The Fiction Works now in partnership with WonderWorks to develop scripts and fund productions of TFW material, that goal looks more like a reality than a dream for her.

Sally had put her 20-plus years as a critical care/ER RN behind her but is again very part-time, telling me "Each shift is payback to God for surviving breast cancer, plus the nursing shortage is not a laughing matter." Her left-over time is parcelled out to this beleaguered Engineer husband, three grown daughters, and four grandkids (Each of the Scottish children's books is written about one). I know she misses her buckskin mare after 27 years of pleasure riding and showing. An occasional trip to a local stable or riding a friend's horses is not quite the same thing. I guess that's why she likes to "live vicariously" in her westerns.

Ultimately, though, it's her Scottish romances I like to contribute my "expertise" to. -- Lyle